


Antelope Dreams

by ambyr



Category: Summer in Orcus - T. Kingfisher
Genre: Dream Sex, F/F, High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 20:34:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13108047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: When she was eleven, Summer thought she was very nearly an adult. At seventeen, she's starting to understand how much she has to learn.





	Antelope Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sour_Idealist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/gifts).



Summer had been watching Ingrid since the start of the semester: in art class, where her drawings were always more interesting than Summer's; in the cafeteria; in gym. She was more than a little embarrassed at how much time she spent watching Ingrid in gym. She had never caught Ingrid looking back at her. If anyone had asked her before the spring fling dance whether Ingrid was aware of her existence, she would have told them a resounding no. So when Ingrid pushed herself away from the wall, drawled, "This dance _blows_. Let's go," and took two steps toward the gym's back door, Summer was very surprised indeed that Ingrid turned back toward her and said, "You coming or not?"

"Um. Yes?" Summer said. She tried to discreetly glance through the corners of her eyes to see if there was anyone else Ingrid might be addressing. "Yes," she added, more firmly.

"Well, come on, then," Ingrid said, and was through the door before Summer could so much as say, But aren't we supposed to stay inside?

She had to admit it was much nicer outside, and not just because she was alone with Ingrid. The spring fling had been very loud and very crowded and filled with vague swaying that Reginald would not have approved of in the least. Still--

"Shouldn't that door be alarmed?" Summer asked Ingrid.

"It was, until Tommy in third period hit the sensor head-on with a basketball last week," Ingrid told her.

"Oh," said Summer. She thought about that for a moment. The basketball hoop was nowhere near the door. "On purpose?"

"You're a quick study."

Summer flushed. It did not sound like a compliment. Also, Ingrid was standing only a few feet away, and flushing felt like a very natural state.

"I imagine they'll fix it soon enough," Ingrid said. "But in the meantime. . . " she rummaged through her pockets and came up with a pack of cigarettes. "Care for a smoke?"

Summer was saved from answering by the door opening, disgorging Mr. Groginard, the school librarian.

He pointed at Ingrid, whose cigarette was halfway to her mouth, and demanded, "Young lady, just what do you think you're doing?" Or at least, he tried to demand. Mr. Groginard was by nature unintimidating, and his voice squeaked on the "what."

"I should think that would be obvious," Ingrid drawled. Summer, who could never come up with a quick quip when one was called for, wavered between admiration and feeling badly for Mr. Groginard, who would clearly have been much happier to have spent his evening chaperoning books.

"Is that what you want me to tell your parents?" he asked, managing not to squeak at all.

"Tell them whatever you want," Ingrid said with a shrug. She slid the cigarette back into the box, tucked the box away, and strode back inside.

"Please don't tell my mom," Summer said into the echoing quiet that followed the slam of the door.

"Summer--" Mr. Groginard sighed. "This is really quite unlike you." She waited, trying not to shift from side to side. "All right," he said finally. "I won't tell your mom. _If_ you stay late and help clean up from the dance. And the next time you come to the library, I intend to give you a book on the dangers of smoking, and I expect you to read it."

Summer knew better than to argue that she _hadn't_ been smoking, not when Mr. Groginard had already capitulated on the important point. "Yes, Mr. Groginard. Um. Is it all right if I stay out here long enough to call my mom and tell her I'll be late?"

It was a long phone call, but Mr. Groginard didn't complain. Of course, he wanted to be at the dance even less than she did. He stood, arms crossed, and listened patiently while she told her mom about volunteering for clean-up crew. Her mom, who had planned to pick Summer up promptly at ten despite the fact that not even _freshmen_ went home that early, was initially inclined to be histrionic about Summer staying out past midnight. Summer resorted to stressing, several times, the importance of volunteerism and initiative on college applications. She made the mistake of mentioning Mr. Groginard's close supervision.

"Summer. He hasn't said anything . . . inappropriate to you, has he?"

"NO," Summer said firmly, and went back to talking about college applications. Eventually, she won from her mom a promise of a 1 a.m. pick-up. She jammed her phone into her pocket.

Mr. Groginard, who had perhaps heard more of Summer's mother's end of the conversation than Summer would have liked, was giving her a look of something approximating pity. "You know, if it's really too much trouble. . . "

"It's fine," Summer said, more shortly than she intended. "Can we go back inside?"

* * *

Cleaning up, Summer decided, was less of a punishment than being forced to stay through the entire dance. She hadn't been able to find Ingrid again, and resorted to leaning against a shadowy part of the wall and trying to imagine Reginald's cutting comments to get herself through the next three hours of dance. 

Once the last of the students not part of the clean-up crew left, though, the music went quiet and the heat began to dissipate. Summer found she rather enjoyed the task of climbing the ladder to take down the balloons and crepe paper strung from the ceiling, if only because it was novel to have someone trusting her not to fall. Her mom still didn't like her climbing to the second step of the kitchen step stool, and insisted on being the one to get things off the high shelves even though Summer now stood a good four inches taller than her.

When the last of the decorations were down, Summer switched to ferrying boxes of punch bowls and flattened mylar balloons into the supply closet. It was heavy work, enough to make her sweat. On the third load, she shrugged out of the cardigan her mom had insisted she wear over her dress and left it draped over the spare mop.

Not until much later, when everything was put away and Summer had gone into the bathroom to splash some water on any smudges that might catch her mom's attention, did she realize she had left her cardigan there.

 _Maybe my mom won't notice,_ Summer thought. But of course her mom would notice. She would lecture Summer the whole drive home about the dangers of hypothermia, even thought it was _April_ and the temperature hadn't dropped below freezing all month, and perhaps burst into tears.

Summer had no idea which chaperone had keys to the closet, or even if they were still at the school. She bit her lip. Her mom would be at the school soon. But the supply closet was only a few doors down from the bathroom, and perhaps. . . .

There was no one else in the hall. She touched the locked handle gently, and whispered, as quietly as she could, "Open, lock! Open--"

The lock to the supply closet clicked open. Summer felt obscurely cheated at not having been allowed to finish the spell. She was also a little alarmed to feel the door handle vibrating under her hand, as though from excitement.

 _Areyoutakingmeonanadventure?_

Summer blinked, and pulled her hand back. When she reached out to touch the handle again, she felt the same vibration, which resolved itself into words while somehow bypassing her ears. (Thinking about it made her feel seasick, so she resolved not to.)

_Are you taking me on an adventure?_

"No," Summer said, forgetting to whisper. 

_Oh. Only you took that other lock on an adventure._

"How do you know that?" Summer asked.

The door handle vibrated a shrug. _Keys gossip. Put two on a ring together, and it's talk, talk, talk! That's how we get messages back and forth._

Summer blinked. It had never occurred to her to ponder how locks might pass messages, because it had never occurred to her that locks might want to pass messages at all. "That was a long time ago," she offered. "Besides, no key has been near that lock." She was very certain of that.

_No, but they know it's gone. Oh, so you did take it somewhere exciting! Some keys said you'd just thrown it in a river, but I knew that couldn't be true._

"I would never," Summer said indignantly, and then stopped. She was arguing with a _lock_. Also, her mom would be at the school any minute now. "Look, will you let me in? I forgot my cardigan. I promise I'll come back later."

_And take me on an adventure?_

"And _talk_ about my adventure," Summer said. Taking a padlock had been easy. She had no idea how she would go about unscrewing a door handle from a door, and that was assuming she had adventures in her future. And that she wanted to commit vandalism. 

_Okay,_ the lock agreed. It stopped vibrating, and the handle turned easily under her hand.

Summer's eyes swept the dim closet and were caught by a flash of turquoise. Hanging on a hook on the opposite wall was a key with a colored plastic ring wrapped around its head.

 _That must be the spare key to the closet,_ Summer thought, and then, _I don't know any spells for_ locking _doors_. She told herself firmly that it was only borrowing, not stealing, as she plucked the key off its hook. She scooped her cardigan off the floor where it had fallen, locked the door behind her, and went out to meet her mom.

* * *

After the conversation with the lock, perhaps it should have been no surprise that when Summer fell asleep, she dreamed of Orcus.

"Smoking and stealing," said the antelope woman from where she lounged against a rock. "You're becoming a regular agent of chaos yourself, I see."

"I was _not_ smoking," Summer retorted.

"Well," said the antelope woman lazily, "if an antelope woman says you were, of course you weren't."

Summer knew then that she was dreaming, because her head didn't ache from trying to puzzle out the antelope woman's words. It was easier to just accept things in dreams.

"But then," the antelope woman continued, "you never had a chance to say yes. I don't think one should get credit for not doing something one never had an opportunity to do, do you? Would you like an opportunity?"

"I understand peer pressure," Summer said firmly. Her mom had been lecturing her on the subject since she was four. "I was not--"

Even in dreams, some things are startling, like feeling the tip of an antelope's tail slide down one's lower back. Summer swallowed. The antelope woman was standing very, very close. Also, Summer realized, she was naked. Well, Summer was naked. The antelope woman, being covered in fur, was no more or less naked than she always was.

". . . we're not talking about smoking any more," Summer hazarded, as she felt the tail tip trace its way further down

The antelope woman chuckled, low and throaty. "No, my innocent, we are not." Her tail slipped between Summer's legs, its touch soft and light. It made Summer gasp. She found she was clutching at the antelope woman for balance. Her fur was bristlier than Summer had expected, not at all as velvety as it looked. That didn't stop Summer from sinking her fingers into it.

The antelope woman made a low, encouraging hum in her throat. Summer realized suddenly that she was now taller than the antelope woman, and could look down, rather than up, into her rich brown eyes. The flashes of red were more prominent than Summer had remembered. Experimentally, Summer ran her hands along the antelope woman's flanks and watched her eyes narrow to slits. For one extremely brief moment, she felt in control of the encounter. Then the antelope woman pulled her tail away from between Summer's legs, and slipped a hand in its place. Three long and delicate fingers slid inside Summer.

It was a good thing, Summer thought distantly, that the antelope woman was very strong, or they would both have fallen into the dirt. And then she realized they _were_ both lying in the dirt, or rather that she was lying in the dirt while the antelope woman crouched above her, horns magnificently silhouetted against the sky. The antelope woman's fingers were moving faster--not just her fingers but her whole hand, down to her inhumanly slender wrist. 

Summer bucked her hips, twisting a bit, trying to shift the pressure to the place that felt just right. Instantly, the antelope woman's hand stilled, and she leaned forward, bending until the tips of her horns thunked solidly into the dirt to either side of Summer's head. Her eyes bored into Summer's.

"Aren't you a squirmy one." Her hand moved in and out, agonizingly slowly. "Stay still, or next time I'll use ropes."

Summer remembered quite clearly--or at least as clearly as she could think of anything at all--the last time the antelope woman had tied her up. If asked, she would not have said it was a happy memory. But on the word _ropes_ , she felt herself spasming, over and over, on the antelope woman's hand.

" _Definitely_ ropes," the antelope woman said. She flexed her fingers once, then pulled her hand free.

"That," Summer said, still gasping a bit for breath. "That was--"

"Not peer pressure," the antelope woman said. "After all, you're definitely not my peer, my not-quite-innocent."

Summer woke tangled in bedsheets. The weasel was curled up on her desk, wedged into the warmest spot between the computer and the printer. Summer thought about what he might be able to smell, flushed, and stalked out the room before he could say anything at all.

* * *

Downstairs, Summer's mom had built up a towering stack of pancakes on a plate beside the stove, and was continuing to fry more.

"Are you quite sure you slept enough? You were out so late."

"Yes," said Summer, who was sure of no such thing. Her mom slid the plate across the counter toward her along with a fork, and Summer gratefully shoveled a forkful into her mouth. 

"Be careful, don't choke," her mom said, reflexively. Summer didn't even sigh. It was hard to be resentful of her mom's caution while pancakes were melting in her mouth. There were many ways that her mom displayed love that Summer found suffocating, but food cooked from scratch was not one of them.

"Yes, mom," she said after she had swallowed. Her next bite was smaller.

"The mail came already." Summer's mom pointed at the small pile on the end of the counter with her spatula. "You have another college packet!"

Summer had been receiving college packets since the fall. This was the first time her mom had ever reacted to one with excitement rather than anxiety. Summer was instantly on alert.

"It's from Red Plains College. You know, the one just down the road from the hospital. You could live at home while you went. I could even drive you to class every day."

Summer sorted through the pile of mail for the packet. It was as good an excuse as any to avoid meeting her mom's eyes while she patiently counted to ten, again and again and again. She had thought that her mom was coming around to the idea that after she turned eighteen and finished high school, Summer might be trusted to look after herself--at least a little. 

"It's very well-regarded. A small school. You'd get lots of personalized attention. Not many sports teams, but of course you'd never do something as dangerous as that. I'm told they have an excellent competitive ballroom dance team."

Summer found the packet, and stopped hearing her mom. The front was ordinary enough: four-color photos of teenagers talking, studying, and strolling across a campus that seemed to consist of nothing but grass and picturesque red brick. (Summer, who had driven past Red Plains College, knew that exactly one building on campus fit the definition of "picturesque.") Inside, though, the first page featured the Red Plains mascot: an antelope with sharp, curling horns.

". . . Summer?" her mom asked. "What are you thinking?"

"I think it looks very interesting," Summer said. "May I take it back to my room?"

Summer's mom gave her and her half-finished plate of pancakes a suspicious look. "I knew you were tired and hadn't slept enough," she decided. "Well, just don't lie down too soon. You might get sick, lying down on a full stomach."

Summer promised, and fled up the stairs. Back in her room, she dumped the Red Plains College packet on her desk. The weasel cracked one eye.

"I was sleeping," he informed her.

"I know," she said apologetically, and rubbed behind his ears with her fingertips until he gave a grudging noise of approval. "But I need your advice. What do you think of this?" She turned the packet to the antelope page.

The weasel turned around twice on her desk, stretched, and squinted down at the picture. His ears went flat. "I think it's an antelope."

"My mom wants me to go here," Summer said. "I think she wants it more than anything she's wanted in a long, long time."

The weasel considered. "I could eat the packet, if it would help. Especially if you got me a nice egg to cover the aftertaste."

"The thing is," Summer said, staring at the antelope, "I'm not sure she's wrong." The antelope itself was red-brown, but its eyes were colored a quite distinct shade of turquoise. "Baba Yaga said I could go back to Orcus, some day. An antelope with turquoise eyes--what if it's a sign?"

"I don't see color," the weasel pointed out. 

"Yes, you do," Summer said confidently. "Weasels have both rods and cones. We learned that in biology." Freshman biology had been two years ago, and most of it had vanished into the mists of memory, but Summer had paid particularly close attention to the subject of weasels.

The weasel turned away from her, scratching at his back. "Fine. I don't see color _well_. But I know antelope aren't to be trusted. Think about the last time you tangled with one."

Summer turned slightly pink and tried very, very hard _not_ to think about the last time she had tangled with one. She was sure that wasn’t the encounter the weasel meant. Pretty sure, anyway. "She did help me escape, though. If she hadn't, I never would have rejoined you, and I couldn't have bound the Queen-in-Chains."

"Hmph. We would have found a way to get you."

Summer wasn't so sure.

"I'll think about it," she said finally, and added the packet to the "maybe" pile on her desk.

* * *

On Monday, Summer missed two obvious serves in gym class because she was distracted by Ingrid's long legs and rounded shoulders on the far side of the tennis courts. She had wondered whether the dream of the antelope woman would make ordinary humans seem less interesting. The answer, it turned out, was the opposite. Summer had learned about a number of possible activities in her admittedly broad reading, but her imagination had never before provided her with quite as vivid an illustration. It made her eager to explore.

She caught up to Ingrid in the hall after class.

"I hope your parents weren't too angry," Summer said.

Ingrid laughed, short and sharp. "Nah. They don't care."

Summer could not imagine what that would be like. She tried, anyway, and in her distraction nearly walked into Ingrid, who had stopped to face her.

"Look," Ingrid said, "I heard you stuck around and cleaned up after the dance. I like you, Summer. But you hang out with me, you're just going to keep getting in trouble. You're a goody two-shoes. I'm not. Maybe we should skip the smoke breaks together, hm?"

On the balance, Summer decided that "I like you, Summer" probably outweighed the insult of "goody two-shoes." Besides, Ingrid's tone hadn't been insulting, just matter-of-fact. And Summer _did_ try to be good. Her hand closed around the key in her pocket, and she remembered the antelope woman calling her a regular agent of chaos. She didn't think the antelope woman was telling the truth, but-- _mostly_ good, she amended to herself.

Summer held her hand out to Ingrid, palm up, displaying the key. "Maybe. I've got a key to the supply closet, though."

A slow smile spread over Ingrid's face, and Summer felt her heart skip a beat. "Summer. I didn't know you had it in you."

"No smoking in the closet, though," Summer said, hastily. "It wouldn't be safe." She hated herself just a tiny bit for sounding like her mom, but Ingrid only smiled wider.

"Oh, I think we can find out something else to do. Lunchtime tomorrow?"

"Lunchtime," Summer agreed. She made a mental note to stop by before that and have her promised conversation with the lock, so it wouldn't interrupt. And if Red Plains College really did hold a way back to Orcus--well, maybe when the time came she could give it an adventure after all. 

She tried not to wonder about whether that adventure would include the antelope woman. But Summer knew one thing: if it did, she wanted the antelope woman to consider her a peer. And that meant she was going to need a great deal of practice.

Summer dropped the key back into her pocket and headed off to math class humming. 

Somewhere far away, Summer could hear a throaty chuckle. She hummed louder, drowning it out.


End file.
